By Blood Alone (34 page)

“By
whom?
” Chien-Chu retorted. “
Governor Pardo
?”

Nankool raised a hand. “Hold it right there.... Don’t kill the messenger. Pardo and her supporters have done an excellent job of getting the message out. The
only
message, till the two of you arrived.

“The sad fact is that your senator, Senator Bates, lived in Pardo’s pocket. His death left no one to tell her story, or
yours
. That’s the challenge, to tell
your
story, and build support.”

Maylo regarded the President with cool brown eyes. “So how ’bout
you,
Mister President? To whom will
your
support flow?”

Nankool was a professional politician, which meant he had very little love for win-lose propositions. But when the chips were down and a decision had to be made he had never been known to blanch. Not in his opinion, anyway. “Governor Pardo is an outlaw and should be stopped.”

Chien-Chu started to say something, but Nankool was quick to interrupt. “Hear me out, Sergi.... That’s what
I
believe, but Pardo has friends, and
they
have votes.

“You were President once—you know how it works. We’re running a democracy here. You want a fleet? Some sort of police action? Then find some support. It’s as simple as that.”

Maylo eyed him across the table. “And you’ll be there for us?”

The President nodded. “Find the votes, or something that will generate the votes, and I’ll back you all the way.”

The rest of the meal passed without incident and was soon over. Nankool escorted them to the hatch, held Maylo’s hand just a fraction too long, and looked at her uncle. “Sergi, a word to the wise . . .”

“Yes?”

“Pardo boarded the ship about two hours ago. Remember what I told you, plus one thing more: The governor wants to be President. She has friends here and knows her way around. Watch your back.”

Dead men have no victory.

Euripdes
The Phoenician Women
Standard year circa 410 B.C.

 

 

 

The desert swept long, hard, and wide into what had once been Ethiopia, but had long since become but one of many Administrative Regions, or ARs, all subject to a single Earth government. Not that the local inhabitants cared, or paid much attention to such abstractions. They lived as they always had, subject to God and the rules of nature.

There was no sign of movement save for distant clouds of dust raised by the seasonal Khamsin and the high, hopeful circles made by a solitary white-backed vulture. A
hungry
vulture that hoped to feed off the weak or the dead.

The riverbed, dry until the October rains sent water flooding along its course, ran roughly north to south and offered the only cover for twenty miles in any direction.

It certainly beat the hell out of
no
cover, but was far from perfect. Tyspin and her people had destroyed most if not all of Harco’s spy sats, and more than a week had passed since one of his high altitude spy planes had attempted to overfly Djibouti.

There were other possibilities, however, primary among which were small, hard-to-detect drones. More than a dozen had been identified and destroyed during the last nine hours—but all it would take was one such machine to reveal his position and open his forces to an effective attack.

Booly lowered his binoculars, slid down the bank, and rejoined his troops. They were deployed in a long, evenly spaced line. It started at a bend in the watercourse and ran roughly southwest, till the river bank jogged and turned south.

The heavily reinforced Interdiction Force (IF) consisted of fifty battle-worn cyborgs, which, with the exception of twelve borgs that remained behind, included
all
of General Kattabi’s armor. Not much against the one hundred fifty armored vehicles that they expected to fight. Still, there was very little choice if they wanted to hold Fort Mosby.

A fly landed on Booly’s cheek. He slapped at it, heard boots on gravel, and turned accordingly. Captain Hawkins looked tired. Desert goggles had left “spook” circles around her eyes, her tan ran many layers deep, and her lips were chapped. Harco’s forces had pushed hard of late, testing the free forces to the north, south, and west. The leg officer had been in the field for weeks.

“See anything, sir? Like a truck loaded with ice-cold beer?”

Those within earshot chuckled, and Booly joined in. “Sorry, Captain, but if the enemy attacks with beer trucks, the first vehicle belongs to me. Rank hath privilege, you know.”

They laughed some more, Radio Free Djibouti played the latest pop hit, and gravel crunched as a Trooper II stalked past. Fykes stood high on its back and offered a salute. Booly responded in kind.

The sun was hot, the air was dry, and the wait went on.

 

The armor was dug in behind a screen of low-lying hills. The force consisted of thirty scout cars, forty-six self-propelled weapons platforms, ten 122mm multiple rocket launchers (MRLs), twenty-five heavy St. James tanks, forty-nine mostly soft-skinned support vehicles, and a company of infantry, all of whom were, or had been, members of the 1st REC, the Legion’s legendary cavalry regiment.

They were extremely very difficult to see, thanks to the fact that all of the vehicles wore camouflage and most were dug in. A clump of palms provided shade, and the tarps strung between provided more.

Major Katherine “Kate” Kilgore often bragged that she could sleep anywhere, anytime, even though it wasn’t strictly true. Most of her subordinates believed the fiction, however, which made it possible to close her eyes and have some time to herself.

Such was the case now as she lay in the net-style hammock and wished for a breeze. A tarp had been rigged between one of the sixty-ton hover tanks and a soft-skinned support truck that sat fifteen feet away. It threw a slowly migrating rectangle of shade over her body and lowered the temp by a full five degrees.

A radio crackled nearby, somebody said something sharp, and the noise vanished. Kilgore took care of her troops—and they took care of her.

The officer studied the inside surface of her eyelids, wished the nap was real, and waited for the recon report. She
knew
Booly,
knew
he was good, and
knew
he’d be waiting for her.

Finding
Booly,
stopping
Booly,
killing
Booly. That was her job. But she didn’t have to like it. Especially now that Matthew “asshole” Pardo had assumed the role of governor, and, if rumors were true, rode Harco like a horse.

Harco was the reason Kilgore had come across. Harco, and the fact that she was sick and tired of seeing good soldiers pissed away by politicians. The shitheads.

“Major?”

Kilgore woke to find that she had actually fallen asleep. She staged a yawn. “Yeah? What’s shakin’?”

Lieutenant Goody, sometimes referred to as “two shoes” by the troops, had been only months out of the academy when the poop hit the fan, and he still regarded senior officers with something that approached awe. He
knew
they were in the field,
knew
he wasn’t supposed to salute, but stood at something that looked a lot like attention. “It’s the drone, ma’am. It’s back.”

“No shit? The stupid-looking disguise actually worked?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Damn. Will miracles never cease.”

Kilgore swung her boots out of the hammock, planted them on the ground, and looked up into the other officer’s face. “Jeez, Goody, what’s the problem? You got a stick up your ass?”

“Ma‘am! No, ma’am!”

Kilgore smiled and shook her head. “Thank God for that. The surgeon will be glad to hear it. Well, come on. Let’s see what that worthless excuse for a tech sergeant came up with.”

The lieutenant led the way, shoulders back, practically marching through the encampment.

Kilgore nodded to a cluster of troopers, winked when they grinned, and followed Goody into a self-erecting tent. The drone, still covered with ratty-looking feathers, sat on a pair of specially designed sawhorses. An access panel had been removed and lay on a nearby table. Sergeant Oko, black skin gleaming, looked up from his work. “Lieutenant . . . Major ... Welcome to my office.”

Kilgore grinned and pointed at the machine. “The loot tells me that this pathetic piece of shit actually worked. Is that true?”

Oko’s teeth were extremely white. “Yes, ma’am. Take a look.”

A table loaded with olive drab com gear sat off to one side. Oko touched some keys, video blossomed, and Kilgore found herself looking at a drone-eye view of the desert. It turned and spiraled upward.

“Sorry about that,” Oko said, turning a knob, “but vultures fly in circles. That’s why it worked—because I programed the drone to do the same thing.”

Kilgore nodded as she watched the video blur and snap into focus.

“Here it comes,” the tech sergeant said proudly. “Full color vulture-vision.”

The fact that the target continued to appear then disappear was somewhat annoying—but wondrous nonetheless. Numbers scrolled down the right side of the screen. They provided air speed, air temp, and grid coordinates.

Gradually, as part of each loop, Kilgore caught sight of the dry riverbed and the long line of sandy-colored cyborgs, and felt the excitement start to build. Here it was! The one thing any self-respecting officer would give her right tit to get—first-class, grade-A, no-doubt-about-it intelligence.

The major reached for her wallet, pulled it out, and selected a fifty. “Here you go, Sergeant. You said the blasted thing would work—and you were right. This should cover the bet.”

Oko made a show of holding the bill up to the light before tucking it away. “Let’s kick some ass, Major. I’ve got some drinking to do!”

 

Their was an artificial roar as the MRLs fired their 122mm rockets in salvos of forty. So, given the fact that Kilgore had ten of the units, nine of which were operational, that meant that the first flight consisted of three hundred sixty airborne weapons, each packing a load of six hundred sixty-six sub-munitions. Each sub had the destructive power of a hand grenade and could penetrate light armor—a truly devastating barrage if the full load landed on target.

Booly and his forces had a full twenty-three seconds worth of warning, which, though less than he would have liked, was sufficient to launch borg-mounted SAMs.

They armed themselves ten seconds after launch, sought the incoming targets, and exploded in midair. Thousands of AA bomblets went off, detonated more than half of the incoming rockets, and sowed the desert with steel.

The explosions followed each other like cracks of thunder, threw black clouds against an otherwise blue sky, and sent tendrils of white spidering in every direction. A second attack followed and exploded so quickly that the bomblets sounded like oversized firecrackers.

Then, as the few survivors from the first salvo neared the point of impact, the next flight left
their
launchers, winked briefly, and disappeared toward the east.

That’s when Booly heard his quads open up with their 20mm six-barreled Gatling guns. With each weapon firing six thousand rounds per minute, it wasn’t long before a virtual curtain of steel separated the loyalist forces from their attackers.

Many of the missiles were destroyed, but some made it through. One struck the empty riverbed, exploded, and threw a dark column of gravel up into the air. A second scored a direct hit on one of the Trooper IIs, incinerated the borg’s brain, and slaughtered a four-person fire team. A third caused a section of bank to collapse, and a fourth hit the number two tanker.

Blood-warm water was still raining out of the sky as Booly climbed up behind Reeger’s head and strapped himself in. Radio traffic filled his ears. “Bone Two to Bone One. Over.”

“This is Bone One. Go. Over.”

“Request permission to engage. Over.”

“Denied. Stay hot—but hold. Over.”

“Wilco. Over and out.”

Booly didn’t blame Hawkins for wanting to break out of the ravine, but knew the price they would undoubtedly pay. Once the cyborgs topped the bank and formed a line abreast, another curtain of steel would fall. Most of the incoming rockets would be destroyed, but some would make it through, and the casualties would be heavy.
Too
heavy for such a relatively small force.

He couldn’t wait forever, though. Assuming the other officer was competent, and there was no reason to think otherwise, he or she would attempt to freeze the IF in place. Then, while the cyborgs climbed out of the riverbed, the enemy would race across the desert, hoping to catch them as they topped the bank.

Explosions boomed, the ground shook, and dirt filled the air as some more rockets made it through. A quad, one of only ten that Booly had, was blown in half. Hawkins, unable to contain herself any longer, chinned the transmit switch. “This is Two.... Request permission to engage. Over.”

Booly checked the data projected onto the inside surface of his visor, heard a fighter pilot check in, and gave silent thanks. Air cover could make all the difference. “This is One.... Permission granted. Keep it tight ... and watch the lines.”

“The lines” were projected on visors, displayed on screens, and etched on memories. They began at either end of the formation and angled out to form what looked like a funnel—a funnel formed by thousands of programmable, self-propelled crab mines. Their purpose was to limit the enemy’s ability to maneuver, concentrate Booly’s targets, and neutralize some of their heavy armor.

That was the upside. The downside lay in the fact that once engaged, Booly’s forces would have nowhere to retreat, except through their own mines.

Yes, they could turn the devices off long enough to pass through, but experience showed that between one and two percent of the mines would remain active. That was just one of the reasons why many officers tried to avoid them.